“’This paper clearly confirms the suspicion that sleep can occur in parts of the brain when the rest of the brain is awake — that’s what we see in the clinic,’ says Mark Mahowald, director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis. Sleepwalking is the best example of how such simultaneous mixtures of wakefulness and sleep can result in complex behaviours, he adds.”
 — Nature reports on a study conducted by University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Guilio Tononi

that discovered localized pockets of the sort of slow-wave brain activity previously thought to be absent during waking hours. “Call it a cortical blink,” says David McCormick, a neurobiologist at Yale. “Just a brief shutdown of a piece of cortex that can disrupt neural processing.” Here are, umm, 25 great songs about being asleep or not asleep. (Excuse the excessive collection. I was having trouble falling asleep last night. But the part of my brain responsible for knowing when to stop embedding YouTube videos must have dozed off there for a while.)

“An article on March 17 about wearing stretch yoga pants at work misspelled part of the name of a woman who frequently wears them. She is Lisa Berlenbach Dixon, not Bierlenbach. Ms. Dixon pointed out the error in an e-mail received by The Times on April 13.”

Back in 2005, the Appalachian Program, a project of the Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, put on a play based on local oral histories. This first largely addressed prescription drug abuse. This spring, they’re back again with a new original musical drama at the school’s Cumberland, KY campus, according to the Harlan Daily Enterprise, with “Higher Ground 3: Talking Dirt”: “Natasha Painter, of Wallins Creek, said this is her first year participating in Higher Ground. She said she plays the part of Beth. ‘Beth is a really strong character,’ said Painter. ‘She’s confused about whether to leave Harlan County or not. She loves the area and asks questions throughout the play trying to help her make her decision. I fell in love with the character because she is so much like me.’” Tickets are $4. Cumberland and Harlan are inside a trapezoid formed by Asheville NC, Knoxville TN, Lexington KY and Charleston WV. Elsewhere in the paper, on the opinion pages, is a note about two up-and-coming politicians: James Ryan and Michele Bachmann. The paper describes Bachmann as “a thoughtful, intelligent and dynamic spokeswoman for common sense and pragmatism.”

Cooking the Books is directed by Valerie Temple and shot and edited by Andrew Gauthier. You can see all the Cooking the Books episodes here or even subscribe via iTunes. Previously: Sigrid Nunez Makes Szechuan Green Beans; Emma Rathbone Makes Strawberry Wafer Cookies; Doogie Horner Makes “Gettin’ Laid Lemonade,” Tao Lin Makes Raw Salad, Jennifer Egan Makes Macaroons.

Here is why the London Review of Books is my absolute favorite periodical going: It can take a topic on which I would guarantee you I have absolutely no interest — in this case, the privatization of postal delivery services in Europe — and turn out a 9000-word piece that is engaging, compelling and makes you feel more informed for having read it. The downside to this is that I have stacks of LRBs lying around the house waiting for me to get to them, but as problems go that is far more preferable than everything else I confront. Do check it out.

The Awl: Joe Brown, you have spent a lot of time in New York City and environs and you have been commended to me as wildly outdoorsy, despite your indoorsy day job as features editor of Gizmodo. I would like to know your secrets without you blowing up any secret spots. So tell me: if I want a good hike within reasonable distance of New York, and maybe I lived a little, so maybe not too hard a hike, wherever would I go?

Joe Brown: Spent a lot of time in New York? I am a ****ing native!

The Awl: Spoken like a native!

Joe: Don’t undersell me, dude. I ooze cred.

The Awl: Definitely now I am using your Travis Bickle Halloween costume picture!

Joe: Oh man, you dug that up? So yeah, while the major outdoor activities in high school were setting fire to garbage cans and running in the subway tunnels, I found myself looking for something a little more rustic when I came back after college.

The Awl: When you became A Man. Ahem, as promised:

Joe: I went to college upstate (Cornell), and really had the lesson hammered into me that New York is a gigantic state with a lot more to it than just the little hangnail we call The City. Actually, after high school I took a year off and spent half that year working in a forest just north of the city.

The Awl: Oh wow, which one?

Joe: It’s called Black Rock Forest, and it’s a privately managed forest.

The Awl: Formerly owned by Harvard!

Joe: Yes, and now run by a consortium of institutions that use it as a teaching forest. We did acorn and deer censuses. We measured stream flows.

The Awl: That. Is. Awesome.

Joe: And every now and then, a class of 5th graders would come up, and we’d take them orienteering. It was a lot of fun. Even though the forest is private, it’s open to the public for hiking daily. You can’t fish or hunt in there, but you can take a stroll. The hikes are generally pretty easy, and it has some amazing vistas. Some beautiful ponds. And there’s a pizza place in the neighboring town of Cornwall that makes a SOLID slice, and serves sodas in those bumpy red plastic glasses.

The Awl: Oh WORD.

Joe: Yeah, legit. I love the forest, and not many people go there, so it’s never crowded.

The Awl: That is just a handy one hour and 20 minute drive from Manhattan!

Joe: Yes it is. Or you could take the Metro North to Garrison and take a cab to the forest gate.

The Awl: I am ready to go there right now and count acorns.

Joe: If you were gonna drive an hour-plus to hike, I would recommend the Delaware Water Gap.

The Awl: Oh! I have driven through, but I have never gotten out of the car!

Joe: Man. You know how beautiful it is when you’re going over that bridge?

The Awl: Yes!

Joe: It’s like 100X when you get off the highway. I mean, if you think about what the Gap is, it makes a lot of sense. That’s where a river cuts through a *******ing mountain range.

The Awl: Heh!

Joe: I don’t know what mountains those are. But the river makes them look like a bunch of ****es. And because of the way that terrain was formed — I think it’s technically a hanging valley — the topography is very severe and dramatic. You can get some really excellent and challenging hikes there, but my favorite thing to do there is get in the water.

The Awl: (They are the Appalachians.) I would do that!

Joe: You can canoe or kayak. You can rent boats in the park and you can even sign up for a tour, which I recommend, because it’s easier not to die that way.

The Awl: Oh that’s smart for the first time. And the second time you can get bold.

Joe: Right. Also, it’s a better use of your time. You spend less time figuring out where stuff is, and more time enjoying the greatest hits, which is important in a day trip.

The Awl: Right? Why spend the first three hours figuring out how to get into a boat.

Joe: Right. Or going to some lame sandbar.

The Awl: Ugh, I have been down this road. Yes.

Joe: The Delaware River is a really awesome river, actually. You can follow it all the way up into the northern reaches of the Catskills, and when you get up there, The D is one of the best natural trout fisheries in the north east. I am a fly-fisherman, and the D is where I learned. It’s a possible day trip, or a cheap overnight. And because the trout towns up on Rt 17 — Roscoe, Hancock, Deposit — are so tourism dependent there are a lot of outfitters who will take you. I love going up to Roscoe for opening day, which is April 1st. It’s a very big deal in a very small circle, the opening day of flyfishing season. Some famous lady throws out the ceremonial first cast.

The Awl: Niiiiice.

Joe: And we all stand shoulder-to-shoulder fishing the Willowemoc (tributary to the Delaware) and easily catching the stocked brown trout. The D, however, is a harsher mistress. Three fish is a great day on the D.

The Awl: Oof, that is harsh.

Joe: The west branch, where I like to go, is not stocked. It’s all native, tricky, smartypants fish, rainbows and browns.

The Awl: Evolution!

Joe: I like to stay at a place called The West Branch Angler. Good guides.

The Awl: Now I want to become a fisherman.

Joe: I recommend it! But always throw the fish back please! Catch and release. Only way to fly.

The Awl: Boooo. (Kidding! That is excellent. I don’t like killing things!)

Joe: You ever drive up 17 and notice those little wooden houses on the bank of the river, all neatly lined up?

The Awl: Oh yes!

Joe: That’s the West Branch.

The Awl: That is where I will sleep when I’m tossing fish back. (Back in the river, not in my mouth.)

Joe: Also, very good guides there will teach you how to fish. And very good food. If you’ve never done a night at a fishing lodge, I highly recommend it. Dinners are typically family style.

The Awl: And fish stories are traded???

Joe: Yeah. You eat with the other guests and lie about how many fish you caught. It’s amazing.

The Awl: I can see how one would WAY get into that.

Joe: Yeah. Also: the gear. Mmmm, gear.

The Awl: Hipwaders!?

Joe: Pshaw! Okay, closer to home. So if you aren’t the water type, and you don’t want to take a train or rent a car, there’s actually a lot of wilderness that’s closer. There’s a really dope park on Staten Island called Wolfe’s Pond Park.

The Awl: Never even HEARD of it! Oh wow, it’s not small!

Joe: No it’s a big ****er. And the cool thing about Wolfe’s Pond: mountain biking trails.

The Awl: Oh ho!

Joe: So you grab your bike, bring it on the Staten Island Ferry, and get warmed up on the way. Then, when you get there, nice, easy trails, some twisties, some hills. But mostly pretty leisurely. And it’s pretty. And, for most New Yorkers, Staten Island is pretty exotic.

The Awl: Plus it has a beach! And how often do you get all that?

Joe: Right! Also they have jumps. Like a terrain park for your bike. RAD.

The Awl: Oh what??? That is crazy.

Joe: Yeah, ****in’ fun. And if you eat it, nobody you know will be there to laugh at you. Because your hipster friends don’t go to Staten Island.

The Awl: They barely go to Manhattan Island.

Joe: There’s no pour-over coffee or artisanal string cheese down there. But! There is excellent pizza.

The Awl: You and your pizza.

Joe: I’m a New Yorker. What do you want?

The Awl: I want pizza now is what I want.

Joe: There’s a pretty good thread about Staten Island pizza on Chowhound. The makings of a day trip — at least.

The Awl: Hmm, we’ve been north, west and south: how do you feel about the Long Island area?

Joe: Oh I like Long Island. There’s Connetquot State Park. And you can flyfish there as well. You call ahead and reserve a stretch of river. And it costs like $8 and you can pretend you’re in “A River Runs Through It.” And you can get there by LIRR and walk from the station.

The Awl: And it’s close! Also that’s where the Southern State ends. Heh.

Joe: It’s cool. You can also go out to Montauk and surf.

The Awl: Isn’t that like, asking for death? Have you actually DONE THAT?

Joe: It’s really good surfing, actually. Problem is, with weekend traffic, it’s quicker to get to California.

The Awl: Seriously. Do not.

Joe: It’s not my sport. But Rockaway Beach is supposed to be really fun, when the wind is out of the north. Plus, far rockaway is pretty cool. It’s this weird little beach town.

The Awl: Yessss!

Joe: You don’t even need to surf to have a good time there. A train to Beach 90 St.: boom.

Joe: If you go east, you can get to PA and there’s some fun stuff, like Jim Thorpe PA, which is a very cool little historic town.

The Awl: Whoa.

Joe: It’s home to some historic mining **** I’m supposed to have heard of, and they have an opera house, which is supposedly pretty dope. Cool cafes and bars. Well, one of each. And there’s fishing there too. And. OH OH OH. RAFTING!

The Awl: That’s basically how I want to die.

Joe: You can go for like $50. I’ve done this and it was awesome. I mean, it’s not the Colorado River. But me and a buddy decided to do this on a Thursday. Friday we were in a rental car. Saturday we were rafting. Sunday we were at happy hour in Greenpoint.

The Awl: That is ideal.

Joe: It’s like a 2-hr drive. Hotels are cheap. And you can hit IHOP on 80 on the way over.

The Awl: Mmmm, carb-loading.

Joe: Oh, one more thing: fishing for beginners: bluefish off Point Pleasant NJ.

The Awl: Whoa.

Joe: Now, you get to keep the bluefish. A few things about bluefish. Fishermen don’t like bluefish, because it’s kind of an oily fish. But on a hot charcoal grill, it is very delicious

The Awl: I can work with that.

Joe: Yeah. The other thing about bluefish? They aren’t very big. Maybe up to about 8lbs. But they hit like locomotives

The Awl: Oh, scary.

Joe: A strong bluefish strike will bring a strong guy down to his knees. And you’ll fight them for a solid 5 minutes. After which point, your arms will be ON FIRE. But man, what a rush. And they’re easy to catch. Because when you go deep sea fishing — which means you are 10+ miles off the coast — it’s really fun and there’s booze on the boat

The Awl: I should certainly hope so.

Joe: Only downside is that it’s expensive.

The Awl: Getting a boat, you want to split that five + ways.

Joe: Yeah, which is a good number, because you can’t fish like that continuously. So it’ll cost you like $100/head.

The Awl: Right. BUT you do get dinner out of it.

Joe: Yup. So there you have it. That’s what I’ve got.

The Awl: You truly are the Great New York City Outdoorsman.

Joe: I do my best.

Sponsored posts are purely editorial content that we are pleased to have presented by a participating sponsor, in this case the Dial; advertisers do not produce the content.

by David Roth and David Raposa

David Raposa: Hey, here’s an MLB reality-show pitch: “BEST SHAPE OF YOUR LIFE.” You get your Cabreras and your Jobas together at some exotic locale during the off-season, put them through their paces, get a Jillian Michaels knock-off to rip them a new one every time they smuggle in some Archway molasses cookies, etc.

David Roth: Hosted by Rich Garces and Summer Sanders.

David Roth: “They all eat hot dogs like Tic Tacs, but only one of these contestants will be able to report to Spring Training and say… ‘I’m in the best shape of my life.’”

David Raposa: CASH MONEY.

David Roth: License up those fake versions of Spoon songs that Bravo uses during “Top Chef,” get Kevin Kennedy and Mitch Williams in a studio with Andy Cohen and it’s on. The MLB Network needs more competitive reality shows. Right now it’s just that version of “Top Chef” hosted by Bengie Molina, and the bar is way too low on that.

David Roth: I don’t know if anyone has been eliminated yet. The last episode I saw, someone won $10k for making something called “Buffalo Drywall” and serving it with 18 ounces of blue-cheese dressing.

David Roth: Also, have you seen that very insane commercial for Jeremiah Weed Pre-Mixed Alcohol Drink Products? They’re running it during the NBA Playoffs and some baseball games, and it’s all shots of weightlifting, gators, goatees, arm-wrestling, tough-man contests, more gators, Oakleys and a giant burger. It’s sort of a Zima For Him, but narrowcasted at guys who watch “America’s Bitchingest Nut-Shots” on Spike. That’s your top sponsor for “Best Shape Of Your Life.” Jeremiah Weed Diet.

David Raposa: Haven’t seen it yet. I might’ve gotten caught in a T-Mobile Girl K-hole for about 45 minutes.

David Roth: That happens. I’m sure there are many .gifs of her awkward Rap Dancing on the Internet right now. I feel too badly/too much for her to look them up.

David Raposa: So, according to Maura Of The Internet (and the Village Voice!), Bobby Valentine is Tweeting! It seems to alternate between a sure-thumbed intern typing in full sentences, and Bobby V going HAM after dipping into Kruk’s super-secret flask.

David Roth: I miss Bobby and the good times we had. I’m reminded of him every time I see Al Leiter on the street. He looks like a more athletic Sean Hannity.

David Roth: I had a terrible track record, the years I had Mets multi-game ticket packages, of going to games started by Steve Trachsel. Which had the pulse-pounding pace of Terence Malick movies, but were four times as long. Or we got Zambrano’d, which was worse.

David Raposa: Oh no! You bore witness to the new-and-improved, after-ten-minutes-with-Rick-Peterson Victor Zee?

David Roth: I can still close my eyes and see him kind of toddling off the mound, looking like some thwarted guy from the deli.

David Raposa: I’m guessing you never took your future wife with you to these games. Since she actually married you.

David Roth: I put her through some stuff. Those times at Shea with my not-then-wife were the sort of things I’d be braggy-apologetic about if I wrote one of those Bourdain-style cool-guy memoirs. A man-moir.

David Roth: “Kate saw a lot of things she shouldn’t have had to see. Christ, the whole Chris Woodward shitshow. And I don’t feel good about it, all the times we went out and got Zambrano’d. Of course, I was calling it ‘getting Zammed’ back then, because I was a child — and just had to pretend it was normal. It wasn’t fair to her.”

David Raposa: How many times did you regale her with the misbegotten Kazmir-for-Zambrano deal?

David Roth: Until she fell in love.

David Raposa: So that’s what I’m doing wrong! Next date I go on, I’m totally whipping out the Jeff-Bagwell-for-Larry-Andersen sob stories. “If only Lou Gorman knew the kind of goatee Bagwell would be able to grow…”

David Roth: The fact that you’ll cry very naturally while telling it will help.

David Raposa: Combine that with my Phil Plantier and Kevin Morton angst, and I should just buy an engagement ring before I pick her up.

David Roth: I think I saw an ad for a Plantier Angst medication on TV yesterday. Ask your doctor if you start striking out a lot and develop a long, looping swing? I apparently suffer from Todd Benzinger’s Disease. Stiff joints, long face.

David Raposa: Yeah — pulling off the ball, hitting pop-ups to the pitcher, etc. It often gets misdiagnosed as Scott Cooper’s Lumbago.

David Roth: Apparently, Benzinger used to buy punk records at Newbury Comics in Boston? A friend told me this, and I guess I respect it. Like he’d go in and find a clerk and be like “What’s good? I like GG Allin.” Only not the very last part.

David Raposa: The truth about the 1988 Red Sox: their fortunes began to change after Benzinger cranked up “I Kill Everything I Fuck” following a mid-May loss. (And to think, I was gonna suggest we NOT talk about NY or Boston.)

David Roth: As long as you get to Boston by way of Hookset, NH’s feces-smeared bard, I think we’re good.

David Roth: We could talk about how the Los Angeles Dodgers were the only team with an ownership group obnoxious enough to make a Bud Selig-led takeover a clear improvement? I feel like in a country that didn’t have some serious wealth-worshipping issues, the McCourts of Chavez Ravine would be on samizdat pamphlets distributed at effigy-heavy rallies.

David Raposa: You’d think Dodger fans would be working the printing presses solely for his approving the Casey-Blake-for-Carlos-Santana trade. The fact that Clan McCourt is as dipshitty with money as they are with the talent just seems to make too much sense. And it helps that they’re total class acts.

David Roth: He looks like a version of Andrew Breitbart that got left in a tanning booth too long, and every single thing I’ve ever read about him or his wife has been more ridiculous than the last. Which is amazing because the “sending Jayson Werth to a crystal healer” thing was like two years ago.

David Raposa: So, about a month until he enters the GOP presidential race?

David Roth: Considering that the Mets seem more fucked financially, it’s hard to escape the sense that Bud just cut him off because McCourt is a jerk. I saw Jeff rocking one of those “Tell Me Off For $1” signs on 43rd and Broadway the other day. And I think they just agreed to rename the team Pepsi Max The New Zero Calorie Soda From Pepsi for the series against the Nationals.

David Raposa: I know what will cheer you up: let’s talk about Jeff Francouer instead! I’m kinda back around towards appreciating him in a Tommy Wiseau kind of way.

David Roth: Because they both have weird French-y names and shouldn’t be playing in a big league outfield?

David Raposa: Because of the inevitable cycle of press he inspires every year.

David Raposa: FRANCOUER: “IT’S WORKING BECAUSE I’M GETTING HITS”

David Raposa: FRANCOUER: “I WALK TO THE PLATE, NOT TO FIRST BASE”

David Roth: I guess he’s really good at making beat writers think he’s interested in their fantasy teams or something. Because the guys from the tabloids last year were like “If the Mets trade Francoeur I swear I will fucking come to your house and I don’t even know what I might do.”

David Roth: Frenchy should get “Watch me throw this ball as far as I can” tattooed on his arm. (I read recently about Raul Mondesi having a gun tattooed on his throwing arm, although I don’t know how or why I was reading about Raul Mondesi “recently.”)

David Raposa: I hope Mondesi had a big ceiling fan tattooed beneath that.

David Raposa: Anyway, that’s the beauty of April baseball — the hope that things can change, that clowns like Jeff F. can learn new tricks, that professional fourth outfielder Sam Fuld can get press in the New York Times!

David Roth: If the awards went out tomorrow, I guess Frenchy gets the MVP and AJ Burnett gets the Cy Young in the AL?

David Raposa: And the Royals and Indians would be in the playoffs.

David Roth: Luke Scott gets the Roberto Clemente Award because it took three weeks for a story in which he does something racist and behaves shamefully to make it into the popular press.

David Raposa: The Baltimore Oriole who really puts the “dick” in “Dickensian aspects.”

David Roth: I am on-board with the Orioles being good, I think that’s great. But that team is like Fox and Friends around the middle of the order.

David Raposa: What other trickle-down dipsticks do the O’s have? Is Vladdy donating funds to Haley Barbour’s war chest?

David Roth: Well, Adam Jones got real ignorant on taxes a while back, but I think he’s hitting eighth now.

David Roth: So I’m just gong to pretend that Mark Reynolds often insists on rounding the bases in a patriotic, Michelle Bachmann-endorsed “Where’s The Real Birth Certificate” Hoveround scooter that flies a tiny Gadsden flag.

David Raposa: When he swings his bat, a Toby Keith song plays out of the knob.

David Roth: He’s donating his entire salary this year to The Joe Arpaio Legacy Project.

David Raposa: I’m guessing most MLBers are like Luke, except they know enough to not yip about it. Or they wait until they have enough tenure for folks to just shrug it off, like Schilling’s John McCain campaigning, or John Smoltz hating that gay people can fall in love.

David Roth: Boy, Schilling looks great these days! Have you seen him on ESPN? He looks like what Jeff Daniels would look like if he were cast as a nocturnal 15-year-old Warcraft addict.

David Raposa: Even better than during the good old days? The baby that a Unit/Schilling union would create could stop time.

David Roth: Stop time and then put a Calvin Pissing sticker on it.

David Raposa: I haven’t yet seen him mouth breathe on the WWL, no. Is he classing up the joint inna Limbaugh stylee?

David Roth: Skin the color of curdled milk. Ill-fitting clothes and odd goatee. Utter certainty about the importance of throwing strikes and the injustice of a progressive income tax.

David Raposa: It is a shock, too, given how much of a hardbody he was during his EverQuest days. You could bounce a dollar off of his abs, and it’d depreciate in value.

David Roth: He was on the cover of Men’s Fitness: Call of Duty Enthusiast edition three months in a row.

David Raposa: Hey, I just saw the Roadhouse Tea commercial!

David Raposa: I want to arm wrestle for oversized burgers now.

David Roth: And I want to punch an alligator with a motorcycle. It’s too bad that you can only buy that beverage at GNC and Bass Pro Shops.

David Raposa: Can’t wait for Manny to come back and get banned for drinking it.

David Roth co-writes the Wall Street Journal’s Daily Fix, contributes to the sports blog Can’t Stop the Bleeding and has his own little website. And he tweets!

David Raposa writes about music for Pitchfork and other places. He used to write about baseball for the blog formerly known as Yard Work. He occasionally blogs for himself, and he also tweets way too much.

Photo by Keith Allison, from Flickr.

“Go the Fuck to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland. Profane, affectionate, and radically honest, California Book Award-winning author Adam Mansbach’s verses perfectly capture the familiar — and unspoken — tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night. In the process, they open up a conversation about parenting, granting us permission to admit our frustrations, and laugh at their absurdity.” [Via]

Fury in Britain after Prime Minister David Cameron, responding to a question from Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Anne Eagle, told his interlocutor — who is a woman — to “calm down, dear.” (This is apparently a line from a popular Knifecrime Island commercial starring the guy who directed Death Wish.) The Guardian’s Cath Elliot is not amused.

“Calm down, dear” is what women hear when we’re allegedly being “hysterical” or “overemotional”. It’s that tired old gender stereotyping, the sort that implies that if we can’t even keep our emotions in check, then we obviously aren’t cut out for the more serious male world of politics and debate.

No doubt we’ll hear over the next few days how Cameron doesn’t really think like that at all. We’ll probably be fed stories about how both his mother and his wife have had an enormous influence on his life, and about how he truly believes that women are just as capable as men at doing all kinds of things, including holding down high-powered jobs and representing their constituents’ best interests in the Commons. But the cat’s out of the bag; it leapt out the moment the prime minister of this country decided that channelling Michael Winner, or that “sexist bore” as he’s more commonly known, would be a good move to make in the mother of parliaments.

The New Statesman sees it as part of a larger pattern:

Winnergate (the near-universal media term for David Cameron’s “Calm down, dear!” to Angela Eagle during PMQs) is unfortunately not a lone incidence of patronising sexism on the part of the Prime Minister. When I interviewed her recently, Yvette Cooper remembered Cameron’s pointed taunts about her decision not to stand for the Labour leadership — he assumed her husband, Ed Balls, had prevented her from doing so. According to Cooper, it points to a “blind spot” the government has on women.

Even the conservative (that word could also be capitalized) Spectator recognizes that the remark was, at best, impolitic:

There is already a rather over-blown debate going on about whether the remark was sexist or not. But whether or not it was, it was certainly ill-judged. It was a tad too patronising and directing it at one of the more junior members of the shadow made it seem bullying.

Still, there are those who find the whole thing remarkably inoffensive. Take, for instance, Michael Winner, who originated the phrase in the above-referenced advertisement:

But speaking from the south of France Mr Winner, a film director, writer and producer, told the Daily Telegraph: “It’s ridiculous that people should talk about this seriously. It’s a comedy phrase that I wrote about ten years ago.

“What planet is [Labour MP] Harriet Harman on if she thinks this is demeaning women and defiling the nation?”
He called on Labour to “get a sense of humour” adding: “There’s a enough gloom in the world.”

There you have it, British ladies. Cheer up, it’s just a joke! No need to get out the knives.

Here’s part two of the look at illegal street searches in New York that we discussed yesterday. It’s pretty bad, really! In addition to having as many as 15 misdemeanor marijuana possession citations being straight-up thrown out in the Bronx alone because the NYPD officer has actually written up that what the person is charged with is not in fact what happened! And, well: “Marijuana possession is now by far the most common misdemeanor charge in the city. Defense lawyers say if everyone with a marijuana charge actually fought his or her case to the fullest, the already overextended court system would grind to a halt.” And? “Last year, 1,142 people told the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) they were improperly searched during a stop-and-frisk. The CCRB is an independent agency that oversees police misconduct. The police department disciplined three percent of the officers involved in those 1,142 cases.”